Patients receiving various medical diagnoses or treatments often need to be positioned correctly to properly receive the diagnosis or treatment. For instance, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) systems require that the portion of the anatomy to be scanned be positioned within a relatively small imaging volume. One problem with some present patient positioning systems is that it is difficult to consistently and accurately locate the patient within the imaging volume to obtain a high quality image.
Moreover, MRI scanners generally require the patient to be oriented with the long axis of the body in a horizontal position. However, other positions of the body, such as vertical, an in-between angle, the Trendelenburg or reverse Trendelenburg positions, or sitting are also desirable.
Another problem is that present systems are limited in the number of positions a patient can be located in and there is no simple method of changing positions quickly for a variety of patients.